


Blood Magic

by PeregrineBones



Series: 1994 [1]
Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 11:13:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7755514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeregrineBones/pseuds/PeregrineBones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius and Remus are reunited after thirteen years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Magic

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at a crossover fic between the world of Harry Potter and the world of Carry On. In this story, which takes place in 1994, Simon and Baz are displaced in time, and are basically living in a different era than the definitely modern world that Rainbow Rowell created for them. Which is a shame because I really love Simon and Baz as children of the current era. However, I am also having a lot of fun imagining their friendship with Remus, which at the opening of this story, has all ready gone on for many years. In this AU I have created, the wizards and the mages coexist in the same world, they just don't have much to do with each other. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this and don't find it all too confusing. This story opens on the morning after Remus and Sirius meet in the shrieking shack for the first time in thirteen years. This story is the first of a series.

Remus awoke slowly, the ache in his joints and the nausea familiar, a sharp pain in his thigh and across his chest where he must have cut himself. He was cold. And wet. A light rain was misting about him. He slowly became aware of the birds singing, greeting the spring dawn with a mad intensity. The smell of damp earth. He opened his eyes slowly, cautiously. The light was grey. He shivered. Where was he? Something was wrong. He shouldn't be alone, in the woods after a change. He had been.... unsupervised. Had something happened? Always, the old fear.

Then he remembered.

He turned his face into the cold leaf mould below him and wept.

His memories of the next few days were vague. He remembered Dumbledore's blue eyes above him in the forest, his voice as gentle and kind as he had ever heard it, saying, “Maybe all is not as bad as you fear.” He remembered being carried back to the castle, Hagrid’s beard rough and scratchy against his back, flung over the larger man's shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He remembered Poppy washing his wounds, her hands and smell familiar. She had, after all, been taking care of him off and on since he was a child. He remembered lying in the infirmary, face to the wall, tears leaking silently from his eyes, refusing all food and comfort. He remembered a brief visit from Severus, in which there was nothing to say, the fragile friendship they had managed to forge over the years suddenly felt empty and meaningless. It was only the appearance of his father, three days later, his face etched with worry, his hands shaking, his eyes blazing with love, that had finally galvanized Remus to get out of bed, drink the potion that Poppy offered him, and drag himself and his father back to Wales.

Once home, Remus wondered how his father had ever stood the journey. Rom went straight to the small bed where he slept in the study. Remus quickly realized he could no longer climb the stairs to his room. Or perhaps it made him too sad, to sleep in the bed he had shared with his wife for thirty years, now that she was gone. It was left to Remus to scrounge whatever food he could find in the small cottage. He put together tea and soup from the meagre supply of pasta and canned goods that he found. He ate little, the days were cool and rainy. It was spring in the Welsh countryside, the fields and hedgerows a riot of wildflowers, but Remus did not notice. He sat by the peat fire and brooded. His old companion, Indigo the cat, left his side only for the barest necessities. Sensing his despair, she fussed over him as if he were a kitten, purring and kneading at his thighs as he petted her absently.

After a few days he realized he would need some kind of job in order for them to survive. He dragged himself into Muggle London, and rather more easily than he had expected, got hired at a bookshop. He wondered if Dumbledore had eased the way somehow. Remus had a feeling he was watching him closely.

The days blurred into a routine. In the morning he would fix tea and toast for his father, bring it to him in his bed in the study, and they would sit quietly together, Rom watching his son with sharp eyes, saying little. Then Remus would apparate to London. He liked the Muggle bookshop where he worked. It smelled right, and he got on easily with his fellow employees, who sensed his sadness and gave him wide berth. At night the enchanted mirror in his bedroom muttered unhelpful things at him such as “Buck up,” and “Be a man.”

He saw Baz occasionally, but there was nothing much to say. The sadness and regret inside him were too deep even for his friend to reach, and they would sit and drink in silence. Remus was lost in the heaviness that never left him, the sense that irreparable damage had been done. He tried to do normal things. He went to hear Baz's band once, sat and had a lager with Simon. Baz was an excellent jazz violinist, and a commanding figure on stage, tall, pale, his black hair coming down into a sharp widow’s peak on his forehead. He was an electrifying performer, he projected a wild freedom on stage that he usually suppressed in the rest of his life. Remus normally loved to watch him play, but that night he felt restless and left early. Some bloke gave him the eye in the bar on his way out and he missed Sirius so suddenly, so piercingly, that it took his breath away.

The owl that came from Dumbledore a few days later was short and to the point. “Expect a visitor soon.”

So when the black dog came lumbering down the road two evenings later Remus was watching for him. Indigo, sitting beside him on the front step lifted her nose, suddenly alert. She recognized his scent. The evening was clear, the moon a waxing crescent, Venus low and bright in a tangerine sky. Remus saw Padfoot approaching long before the shaggy dog noticed him, canine vision being poor. He was splattered with mud, his fur matted. Remus watched him point and sniff and then he was bounding towards him, his muddy paw on Remus' knee, his eyes bright and eager. Remus scritched him behind the ears, and the big dog whined with pleasure. “Hello Pads,” he said softly, tears suddenly in his eyes.

Padfoot followed him into the kitchen. Remus heard a soft whoosh and turned to find Sirius standing before him.

He found himself lost for words. The man who stood before him was gaunt and filthy, his clothes in rags. His eyes were wild and unfocused. Remus saw with sudden shock the prison tatoos on his arms, snakes and roses, twining around his wrists and up his forearms, visible through the holes in his sleeves. Sirius noticed him noticing and a look of shame crossed over his face as he tried to pull the tattered fragments of fabric together. They stood for a few moments looking at each other in the quiet kitchen.

“Moony,” Sirius said at last, his voice a low growl.

Remus went to him then, grabbed him by both shoulders and kissed him on the mouth, startled by the rough feel of the beard against his cheek. Sirius kissed him back, thank Merlin and Morgana. For a moment he had not been sure. Sirius' mouth opened slightly, he relaxed into the embrace, but after a moment they broke apart, eyeing each other warily. His smell was of unwashed dog, not unpleasant, but strong. Remus looked at him, breathing hard, unsure whether to laugh or cry.

“Do you have any food Moony?” said Sirius gruffly into the silence.

“Of course,” said Remus, and busied himself with plates and bread and lager. He had made a rich stew for dinner for himself and his father. Sirius ate ravenously, ate the entire pot, silently, with an animal intensity. He clearly had not eaten in days. When the food was gone he looked up at Remus with heavy eyes.

“Bed,” said Remus quickly, and he led Sirius upstairs. Sirius knew the way, he had visited Remus here many times in their youth. He crawled into Remus' small bed as if it were his own, too exhausted even to remove the filthy rags he wore, and was asleep instantly.

Remus spent the next two hours warding the house and yard with every protection and concealment spell he could think of. The crescent moon out in the garden was setting, large against the horizon. He felt the familiar pull at his blood, his joints. He was glad he had some time before the full moon came. He suddenly had a lot to do. The apple trees were in flower, their blossoms shone white in the darkness, heavy, like snow. The air was thick with their scent. He returned to the kitchen to find his father scrounging around for something to eat, slicing bread and cheese for a sandwich, setting the dirty stew pot and bowl in the sink, where the charmed scrub brush set to washing them.

“Sirius is here” said Remus quietly.

“I gathered,” said his father. Then after a moment, “Remus.”

Remus looked up.

“Do you think it’s safe? He's wanted by the ministry.”

“We'll leave if you want,” said Remus quietly. “I understand if you want us to go, but I won't.....separate from him again. I've secured the house and yard as well as I could. There's just one more spell I need to do. I thought maybe you could help me with it.”

“Gwaed clydwch,” said Rom quietly. Remus nodded. “That's dark magic, son.”

“I know,” said Remus. Then, when his father said nothing, “I'll fetch the knife upstairs.”

Remus turned to the stairs to the upper floor, his stride graceful and intent. Rom stood and remembered his son and Sirius in this kitchen as teenagers, talking together in low voices, laughing. He remembered the morning he'd watched them fixing breakfast together, seen their hands brush, the intentionality of it, seen the light in Remus’ face, and known for sure that his son was in love with the handsome, cocky pureblood, with mischief in his eye and anger in every step. He remembered them as young men, sworn into the Order, facing danger daily, yet sure in their passion for the rightness of what they were doing. He remembered Remus at twenty, standing in the front yard, his eyes blazing with love, his whole body leaning forward in anticipation, as a small, silver dot came nearer and nearer and Sirius Black had dropped gracefully from the sky on his enchanted motorbike with a grin. Rom had realized then that his son was blessed with a love more deep and true than any he would ever know, and he had been glad for him.

Remus returned with the silver knife in velvet lined box and a slip of parchment. “ I rechecked the incantation,” he said.

“How is Sirius?” asked Rom

“He's.... I don't know.” Remus ran his hands through his hair “Terrible? He's spent 12 years in Azkaban and the last year mostly as a dog as near as I can tell. He seems barely human. But he's asleep right now at least.”

Romulus nodded. “I want you to stay here,” he said. “I care about him too, you know.”

Remus smiled then, the first smile his father had seen in weeks. He crossed the room to Rom and embraced him hard. “Let’s get this done then, shall we?” he said.

It only took a few minutes. They cut their palms with the silver knife. Remus flinched visibly when the silver touched his skin, but he was staunch. They smeared blood on the windowsills, and over the top of the front and back door, chanting the incantation in Welsh at each portal, “Gwaed clydwch drwg weithredwr*” in hushed tones. This was ancient, Celtic magic from the time before the Romans, and it had been forbidden for many centuries.

By the time they were done they were both exhausted. The house seemed to turn in on itself, the silence deep, the clock ticking, the fire gone cold.

“Go to bed, Dad,” said Remus gently. “I'll do the upstairs windows tomorrow. We should be OK for tonight unless they come after him on broomsticks.”

“Or a flying motorbike,” said Rom smiling, remembering.

“I think the only one in Britain is locked in our shed,” said Remus smiling back.

He was just starting to think about fixing a sandwich for himself when he heard loud footsteps overhead and the unmistakable sound of someone retching. “Oh dear,” said Remus, and with a nod to his father, he headed up the stairs.

 

*Blood protects from evil doers


End file.
